Monday, July 07, 2008

I've had a few non-payers since my last post and my fair share of grief with drunks and losers.

One of the non-payers was picked up in Gospel Oak. She had a young guy with her but she was obviously the dominant one as she kept ordering him about. They asked to be taken to Camden Town but changed their mind on the way to an address not a million miles away from my home. Her phone rang and she told him to be quiet as it was her husband. The poor guy nearly crapped himself and while I was waiting at lights tried to open the door to make a dash for it. She started laughing and hurling insults at him because of his lack of adventure but he started panicking and just said "please let me out mate" to me. I took my foot of the brake and the doors unlocked and he was off running like a greyhound after the hare. She couldn't stop laughing and in retrospect she was probably laughing at all men including the one she was about to take for a complete mug. As we arrived at her address the theatrics began. "Some bastard's knicked my wallet" I just sat there thinking here we go again. "look, I'm a payer I am, I always pay my way but someone’s definitely knicked my money" I asked what was she going to do about it and she said she could ring me later and arrange payment. We were outside a place where there was a party going in full swing and there were lots of undesirables looking over at the cab and getting a bit too close for comfort so I decided that living to fight another day would be better than nothing so I gave her my mobile number and she got out. I went home and straight to bed and when I woke there was a missed call from a strange number so perhaps she did try and ring but as far as I was concerned I would never see that £18 again.

On a recent visit to the cab garage I had to part with five weeks rent, that’s a thousand hard earned quid. The owner was at the helm as his manager, the genial Irishman, was away somewhere receiving treatment for something or other. Once the money was paid the owner told me I was still four weeks in arrears. He came to that conclusion just by matching the payments I’d made with the payment book. I told him that the manager always has the dates written down wrong in the book as I’ve pointed out to him on lots of occasions and that in fact I was up to date. I have all the receipts of my payments at home and he asked me to bring them in next time I come. He also gave me a parking ticket notification and it was dated January the 6th. I could just imagine it lying buried under the managers untidy desk for weeks and then suddenly being discovered and put aside to give me after the two-week period where you can pay only £60 has elapsed. As the manager wasn’t there to explain we decided to wait until he returns but there’s no way I’m paying for someone else’s mistake. The actual offence is debatable too as the only thing I could think of was that I was photographed dropping someone off in a bus lane on Newington Green Road which isn’t an offence, and some jobsworth camera controller has decided to do me for it. The case continues.

I’m off out now to hand over another £400 to my mother in law (hi Jan!!) to pay for my daughter’s forthcoming annual trip to see her mother in San Diego.

I should be posting something later on this week so check back in three or four days.Be Lucky out there.LC